Red Bull takes out 2012's best transmedia campaign

By By Amy Kellow | 15 January 2013
 
Red Bull's 'Stratos' campaign, which featured footage of Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner jumping from space, has been named the winning campaign. The freefall has amassed over 32 million hits since its launch in October last year.

Red Bull's supersonic freefall, which now has over 32 million hits, has been crowned 2012's best transmedia campaign, trumping competitors including Coke, Toshiba and Google.

The list has been compiled by The One Centre's independent publication, the Branded Arts Review (BAR), which reviewed the top five transmedia campaigns of 2012.

Red Bull's 'Stratos' campaign, which featured footage of Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner jumping from space, was named the winning campaign. The freefall has amassed over 32 million hits since its launch in October last year.

The One Centre's chief executive John Ford said: “The Red Bull Stratos project was a most outrageously ambitious execution of Red Bull’s extensive branded entertainment catalogue and like all great risks it has paid off ten-fold with immense attention and a huge ramp up in awareness of the brand.

“We have seen estimates that the campaign has garnered media attention worth about $155 million and it has been prominently features across all types of media, either paid, owned, or earned."

Second on the list was Coke's Olympic-themed 'Move to the Beat of London' push which featured a host of athletes and musician Mark Ronson. The campaign was the brand's largest  Olympics activation in its 84-year partnership with the games.

Ford said: “Coke’s 'Move to the Beat' campaign was spectacular in its media diversity. It included the anthem created by Mark Ronson, online gaming experiences, music sharing apps, the usual advertising activity as well as online films, feature-length documentaries, a TV show, public art works and interactive installations.”

Intel and Toshiba's 'Beauty Inside' online social push, which allowed viewers to become part of the story, was named 2012's third best transmedia campaign.

The BAR blog said: "The aim was to engage young audiences and what better way to engage ‘generation me’ than by creating a global casting call over social media and giving fans the chance to appear in the social film. An innovative idea and a super savvy way to get an audience obsessed by Apple products to consider another brand.

"The project was a major success proving there is a huge appetite for immersive storytelling experiences. The concept was groundbreaking and pushed boundaries. It was an innovative and refreshing and a standout against the other branded entertainment projects."

Meanwhile, fourth and fifth place were taken out by AT&T and Google for their respective 'Daybreak' and 'Exhibition' campaigns.

BAR said of 'Daybreak': "The online series began on TV through the TV series Touch and swiftly moved online where the mysterious story unfolded through webisodes, online games, mobile apps, and social media.

"A truly transmedia branded entertainment exercise, Daybreak proved that brands could create compelling content that audiences want to not only watch but also engage with."

It said of Google's 'Exhibitions' push: "The two exhibitions, Web Labs at London’s Science Museum and This Exquisite Forest at Tate Modern, were unique in providing dual experiences both in the physical realm at the museums and galleries as well as online.

"The projects were immersive, engaging, rule breaking and boundary pushing. They also gave an online-only brand a physical presence and a whole new audience of artists to engage with.

"The exhibitions were transmedia playing out in the physical exhibitions and in the online space and they gave consumers a new way to engage with Google. Craftily they also required users to use Chrome to get the full experience of the exhibitions and in doing so enlisted an army of users – once you go Chrome you never go back."

View BAR's list and the videos here.

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